How did we get here?

Summarizing the current state of this country in as few words as possible, someone recently asked that question, and I’ve been considering it ever since. With all the misery Trump has caused, the question of how we got here becomes more significant by the hour.

So how did we get here? How did we wind up with such a little man in such a big job—with such a shallow man having such profound responsibilities—with such a venal man leading a generous and charitable countr—and with such a cruel and vindictive man leading the country that we expect God (in the song, at least) to bless? How did we wind up with a felon in the White House and a coterie of inept cowards dragging the country into chaos and lawlessness?

I know the historical aspects. In the 1950s, the middle class burgeoned and began to live as happily as the wealthy, who had always been the chosen of the GOP. Thus began the steady effort to restore a dual society—rich and poor and not much in between. The effort was interrupted in 1964 (Civil Rights Act) and again in 2008 (Obama elected) but gained momentum in 2016 and reached its goal (but unfortunately not its pinnacle) in 2024.

We all know that part, but what happened to us to make us so ignorant, so unconscious of where we were headed? It’s been 75 years in the making. Maybe the question is the answer.

I taught English, not history, but I’m not blameless. I always approached my Black Literature class in the 70s from the perspective of someone who had witnessed the decline of racism. It wasn’t just legislation—Black people were on television, in the movies, playing baseball, running for office and winning, writing novels, teaching at universities, and running corporations. Racism had finally been eliminated. In class, we read about slavery without anyone questioning how horrid it was. It was obvious in its dehumanizing and sadistic tenets. Nobody called it a jobs program. Nobody debated its godlessness. I wonder if I emphasized enough what a blot this was on our country, or if I was too busy cheerleading for America, the nation that beat racism. It was another sign of a democratized middle class, but the signs were deceiving.

I think that was my assumption whenever history crossed over into literature. In The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane's novel about the Civil War, I focused on the characters. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the evil that precipitated that war and the fact that evil doesn’t disappear that easily. It can’t be written or wished away.

I certainly knew the effects evil played in Shakespeare and Hawthorne; even Poe, in his perverse way, showed us that we couldn’t always trust the good to win out.

But we did trust it. We convinced ourselves that all politicians are alike, that both parties are the same, that voting every four years was more than enough of an imposition on our time. And so we elected a movie star as president. The throughline from Reagan to Trump is broken and sometimes faint, but we finally saw it clearly when we dishonored the Oval Office in 2016 by gifting it to a womanizing grifter...then issued a final “I really don’t give a damn” by re-electing him after he had been found guilty of a felony and had contrived a violent overthrow of his own country. And in a most predictable irony, Donald Trump was elected twice by the American middle class—White and Black—the very people whose economic well-being will be shredded by taxes and tariffs.

How did we get here? Like that. Ignorance helps. But let’s not forget that this sad revolution received a good deal of assistance from the Democrats. Next time, we’ll take a closer look at how good intentions really do pave the pathway to hell.